Alert over terror lorry

Ports across Britain are on a terrorist red alert today after warnings about a plot to smuggle a lorry packed with explosives onto a cross-Channel ferry.

French and Dutch intelligence services raised the alarm about a threat to a North Sea ferry.

The information is believed to have come from the FBI as part of the international "war on terror" amid concerns that al Qaeda is planning new atrocities.

It is understood that Britain's transport security warning service, Transec, played down the warning in a secret bulletin to ports last Friday.

But now all British ports with roll-on roll-off ferry services have been ordered to a level of alert described as "heightened emergency".

This is the highest state they have been on since the current alert system was introduced.

A spokesman for Dover, Britain's biggest ferry port, confirmed that port authorities there stepped up the searching of lorries and the questioning of drivers.

The spokesman told the BBC that every building at Dover was searched thoroughly on Friday morning after a warning from another government agency. Nothing was found.

Lorry drivers are now being subjected to more questioning and a stricter search regime is in place at all ports.

Several Nordic ferry companies including Color Line, which operates routes to the UK, also increased their security at the weekend following the warning.

According to the French news agency AFP, an anonymous tip-off received by US intelligence services claimed a bomb would explode on a European ferry last Saturday after being driven on board in a truck.

The latest warnings come after Tony Blair warned Britons to be vigilant against terrorist attack.

In his address to the Lord Mayor's Banquet, Mr Blair said the UK's security services were receiving "almost daily" warnings of terrorist attacks.

The Prime Minister did not outline specific threats, but he said devastating events such as the Bali bombing showed no country was immune from attack.

A recent draft Home Office statement released by mistake warned of a possible chemical or nuclear attack on the UK using a "dirty bomb" or poison gas.

Mr Blair said: "Where there is specific intelligence about a particular attack, we act to thwart it directly.

"Where we know cells of al Qaeda are operating, here or abroad, our services are monitoring them, disrupting them, where possible, dealing with those involved; if they are here, imprisoning or expelling them.

"Where there is intelligence suggesting potential targets, we increase surveillance or security as far as we can without causing unnecessary hardship or alarm to the public."

However the Prime Minister said the threat of a terrorist attack must not be allowed to paralyse normal life.

"If we acted on every piece of raw intelligence... we would in my time as Prime Minister on many occasions shut down roads, railways, airports, stations, shopping centres, factories and military installations."

David Osler of Lloyd's List, said the latest warning came from Transec, an arm of the Department of Transport and was similar to one issued in France and the Netherlands.

He added: "It was really arguing that Britain didn't have any specific credible intelligence to support that threat but was demanding an increased state of vigilance.

"The threat seems to have taken the shape of a lorry possibly loaded with explosives. What we've seen in a number of continental European ports was that security was stepped up over the weekend precisely because of these very fears."

He continued: "Given that there has been an order to increase checks on trucks leaving Britain we think our intelligence services must be acting on that same threat."

In a statement Downing Street sought to play down the risk to passengers.

Downing Street confirmed that ports, along with the rest of the country, had been put on a heightened state of alert.

Senior Whitehall sources, however, indicated that the intelligence material warning of one or more lorries filled with explosives heading for this country had been investigated and found to be "unreliable".

A statement from No 10 said: "It is not true that a new general warning has been issued in relation to ferry travel and nobody should change their travel plans as a result."

The intelligence chiefs in charge of President Bush's "war on terror" are convinced that a fresh al Qaeda atrocity is being planned. CIA chief George Tenet said recently: "They're coming after us."